Egypt State Information Service (Cairo)
29 November 2011
For the ninth time, unidentified masked men bombed the natural gas pipeline which is located 17 meters west of Arish city, North Sinai. Fire was seen rising dozens of meters above the area.
Officials of GASCO Company have managed to close the principal taps to control the fire. The attackers left a message written on sand in which they said “we will not allow exporting our wealth to Israel.”
Inspections showed that the perpetrators have planted three bombs in three holes; each is 50-meters-far from the other and is placed at a depth of two meters under earth. They detonated two bombs while the third did not explode.
A security source said all the basic gas stations have been supplied with surveillance cameras and supported with intensified security measures prior to the incident but the attackers changed their strategy in this attack as they targeted the pipeline itself and not the stations.
He pointed out that the line extends for hundreds of kilometers and that it is not easy to control over such long distance. He also pointed out that several people have been arrested earlier over bombing the pipeline but some are still at large.
He also confirmed that crackdowns to arrest the attackers are going on after interrogation of the detainees arrested over the repeated attacks led to the identity of those at large.
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